Perfecting The Method of "Color Revolutions"Western leaders slip back into childhoodBy Thierry Meyssan

August 07, 2012 "Information
Clearing House" -- In 1985, a
social scientist, Gene Sharp, published a study commissioned by
NATO on Making
Europe Unconquerable.
He pointed out that ultimately a government only exists because
people agree to obey it. The USSR could never control Western
Europe if people refused to obey Communist governments.

A few
years later, in 1989, Sharp was tasked by the CIA with
conducting the practical application of his theoretical research
in China. The United States wanted to topple Deng Xiaoping in
favor of Zhao Ziyang. The intention was to stage a coup with a
veneer of legitimacy by organizing street protests, in much the
same way as the CIA had given a popular facade to the overthrow
of Mohammed Mossadegh by hiring Tehran demonstrators (Operation
Ajax, 1953). The difference here is that Gene Sharp had to rely
on a mix of pro-Zhao and pro-US youth to make the coup look like
a revolution. But Deng had Sharp arrested in Tiananmen Square
and expelled from the country. The coup failed, but not before
the CIA spurred the youth groups into a vain attack to discredit
Deng through the crackdown that followed. The failure of the
operation was attributed to the difficulties of mobilizing young
activists in the desired direction.

Ever since
the work of French sociologist Gustave Le Bon in the late
nineteenth century, we know that adults behave like children
when they are in the throes of collective emotion. They become
susceptible, even if for just a critical fleeting moment, to the
suggestions of a leader-of-men who for them embodies a father
figure. In 1990, Sharp got close to Colonel Reuven Gal, then
chief psychologist of the Israeli Army (he later became deputy
national security adviser to Ariel Sharon and now runs
operations designed to manipulate young Israeli non-Jews).
Combining the discoveries of Le Bon and Sigmund Freud, Gal
reached the conclusion that it was also possible to exploit the
"Oedipus complex" in adolescents and steer a crowd of young
people to oppose a head of state, as a symbolic father figure.

On this
basis, Sharp and Gal set up training programs for young
activists with the objective of organizing coups. After a few
successes in Russia and the Baltics, it was in 1998 that Gene
Sharp perfected the method of "color revolutions" with
the overthrow of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

After
President Hugo Chavez foiled a coup in Venezuela on the basis of
one of my investigations revealing the role and method of Gene
Sharp, the latter suspended the activities of the Albert
Einstein Institute which served as a cover and went on to create
new structures (CANVAS in Belgrade, the Academy of Change in
London, Vienna and Doha). We saw them at work the world over,
especially in Lebanon (Cedar Revolution), Iran (Green
Revolution), Tunisia (Jasmine Revolution) and Egypt (Lotus
Revolution). The principle is simple: exacerbate all underlying
frustrations, blame the political apparatus for all the
problems, manipulate the youth according to the Freudian
"patricidal" scenario, organize a coup, and then propagandize
that the government was brought down by the “street.”

International public opinion easily swallowed these stage
settings: first, because of a confusion between a crowd and the
people. Thus, the "Lotus Revolution" actually boiled down to a
show on Tahrir Square in Cairo, mobilizing a crowd of tens of
thousands, while the near totality of the Egyptian people
abstained from taking part in the event; and second, because
there is a lack of clarity with regard to the word "revolution".
A genuine revolution entails an upheaval in social structures
that takes place over several years, while a "color revolution"
is a regime change that occurs within weeks. The other term for
a forced change of leadership without social transformation is a
"coup d’état". In Egypt, for example, it is clearly not the
people who pushed Hosni Mubarak to resign, but U.S. Ambassador
Frank Wisner who gave him the order.

The slogan
of the "color revolutions" harks back to an infantile
perspective; What matters is to overthrow the head of state
without consideration of the consequences--“Don’t worry about
your future, Washington will take care of everything for you.”
By the time people wake up, it’s too late; the government has
been usurped by individuals not of their choosing. At the outset
though, there are cries of "Down with Shevardnadze!" Or "Ben
Ali, get out!” The latest version was launched at the third
conference of "Friends" of Syria (Paris, July 6): "Bashar
must go!"

A strange anomaly can be
detected with regard to Syria. The CIA did not locate groups of
young Syrians willing to chant this slogan in the streets of
Damascus and Aleppo. So it is Barack Obama, François
Hollande, David Cameron and Angela Merkel themselves who repeat
the slogan in chorus from their respective foreign offices.
Washington and its allies are trying out the methods of Gene
Sharp on the "international community". It is a risky bet to
imagine that foreign ministries can be as easy to manipulate as
youth groups! At the moment, the result is simply ridiculous:
the leaders of the colonial powers have been stomping their feet
like angry, frustrated children over a desired object that the
Russian and Chinese adults won’t let them have while ceaselessly
wailing "Bashar must
go!".

Thierry Meyssan,
founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace
Conference. Professor of International Relations at the Centre
for Strategic Studies in Damascus. His columns specializing in
international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly
magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books
published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

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